Smyrna-Vinings Education News You Can Use

New day, same story as we’re again in store for lots of miserable excessive heat Wednesday. Temperatures will again be in the 90s with a high near 98. The heat index will be well over 100, reports the National Weather Service. 

And of course, it’s another Code Orange day.

Tuesday offered tragic reminders of the dangers of practicing in the heat, as two Georgia high school football players died, most likely from heat stroke or heat exhaustion.

Campbell High’s football team was set to practice from 8 a.m to 6 p.m. today, but a 10 a.m. news release from the Cobb County School District indicated that due to the excessive heat index, all outside activities at Cobb schools have been canceled between the hours of noon and 6:00 p.m. until further notice.

The CHS football practice schedule will see the Spartans practicing during the evening ours for the remainder of the week.

• Turning to more education briefs, new school superintendent Dr. Michael Hinojosa will meet with the school board on Saturday morning to discus parameters and goals for Hinojosa for the 2011-12 school year. After analyzing a preliminary list of goals submitted by the superintendent, the board will eventually adopt a “District Goals’’ list that Hinojosa will be evaluated on.

And speaking of the new Cobb schools chief, you must check out of this welcoming video that was produced by CCSD staff and students, and was revealed before Cobb principals at a Monday leadership event.

Many people have mixed reactions to the lip sync video, which was produced by the broadcast production team at Harrison High School. Here's what some are saying on the CCSD Facebook page.

• International Academy of Smyrna, formally Imagine International Academy of Smyrna, will be holding Meet and Greets for teachers, students and parents on Thursday and Friday this week.

The timeline for the school’s five-year renewal petition was recently extended by CCSD board members. The board granted a 30-day extension on June 23, but now will wait until Sept. 29 before denying or approving the petition.

The coming school year will not be affected by the board’s decision as the petition is for the 2012-13 school year.

• This summer, the Georgia PTA honored the Jessye Coleman Council of PTAs for having the highest increase in membership for 2010-2011. This group represents schools in the southwest area of the district, including ; and middle schools; and , , , , , , and elementary schools.

• Wednesday night at The Lovett School, Dan Meyer will be speaking about his real world math philosophy beginning at 7 p.m. in the Hendrix-Chenault Theater.

Meyer taught high school math for six years, is a Ph.D. candidate in math education at Stanford, blogs at http://blog.mrmeyer.com, and speaks internationally. This is a free event an open to the community. For more information, see here.

• Also from Lovett, inspired by the success of a pilot project last April, the edu180atl project will highlight new stories each school day from 180 different “learners” responding to the prompt “What did you learn today?”

Educators, students, and community members from around Atlanta are challenging the notion that tests equate learning. Edited and curated by a team of public and independent school educators, the edu180atl project offers much needed hope that learning is personal and lifelong, and it is often uncovered by observation, exploration, and reflection.

Students, parents, teachers, authors, university professors, designers, business people are contributing and you can share your story, too. The hope is that shared experiences may spark one kid, one teacher, one mom, or one dad to wonder; to be more inquisitive; to learn more about the world inside and around us.